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Pastimes : A CENTURY OF LIONS/THE 20TH CENTURY TOP 100 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (2778)	4/17/2000 11:31:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3246

Interesting......but 19th century......

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (2778)	4/17/2000 10:13:00 PM
From: Raymond Clutts	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3246

Just catching up with a few of the posts of the last week and noticed yours citing a list that had Lincoln leading as the worst American President for those who abused American liberties. Hm. HM. Really? I think that anyone who has studied the systematic legal oppression that constituted slavery in the antebellum American south would agree that any form of political opposition to chattel slavery could only be deemed to be libertarian in character. Lincoln refrained from a wholesale endorsement of the abolitionist platform in order to stand in the center where he could effectively form a coalition with those who believed themselves to be Unionists without concern for the issues of slavery. In an intellectual debate that makes you equivocal. In politics that makes you a statesman. The technical historical characterization for someone who forms a governing coalition that can successfully carry out its goals is, "winner." Thank God that in this instance Lincoln was a statesman endowed with these characteristics who used his abilities to broaden the franchise to include all of its native born citizens. However reluctantly he may have begun and whatever other alternatives he may have considered along the way. (Yes, I am very familiar with Lincoln's equivocations.) Despite his periodic local suspensions of habeus corpus, Lincoln and the Union fought for human liberty and any revisionist attempt to characterize his efforts as tyrannical are as suspect as those of the recent efforts by various "historians" to define the Holocust out of existance. Copperheads were inciting armed insurrection in border states and the duly constituted majoritarian governments were entitled-no they were obligated-to resist the imposition of the will of the minority in opposition to that of the majority. Anything less would have meant that elected officials were willing to ignore the authority vested in them by virtue of their elected status. A quick review of the rest of that best of list you cite seems to suggest that any American President that used force in times of war was by definition one that was oppressive. (Note that the worst of list includes Lincoln, Adams, Wilson, Truman, Roosevelt, Bush and Johnson.) Again we aren't perfect as a people, but our record in waging war in support of democratic self governance is much better than that of any other nation. In nearly every one of these cases cited as oppresive Presidents, there was an underlying conflict where America's participation in war was waged with the intent of bettering the human condition by supporting democracy. And while I regard him as an honorable man who did his best for his country under trying circumstances, it's difficult to take any list seriously that rates Gerald Ford among the best American Presidents on any purported basis.